Proteolytic enzymes find widespread commercial applications and have been successfully implemented in quite different industries such as the detergent, leather, chemical, agricultural, pharmaceutical, food and dairy industries.
In order to provide the industry with more alternatives to established enzymatic processes, and in order to offer an improved cost/performance ratio, extensive research in finding new enzymes takes place.
In 1986 two new genera of nocardioform actinomyces, termed Amycolata and Amycolatopsis, were described Lechevalier M P, Prauser H, Labeda D P and Ruan J S; Int. J. Sys. Bacteriol. 1986 36 (1) 29-37!. However, proteolytic enzymes obtained from Amycolata or Amycolatopsis have never been isolated or characterized.